Tall Dark Defender

by Beth Cornelison

  “Sure thing, honey. I got it covered.” The older waitress smiled and jerked her head toward the door. “Get on home to those babies and give ’em a kiss for me, too.”

  “Thanks, Lydia.” Annie untied her apron and stashed it under the counter. Grabbing her purse, she headed back to the kitchen, walking with careful penguinlike steps to avoid slipping on the greasy film that had accumulated on the floor through the day. As she neared Mr. Hardin’s office, she heard his raised voice, and her heart beat a little harder.

  “That’s not enough time! I said I’d get it to you!” he ranted.

  As Annie tiptoed past his half-open door to clock out, she caught her reflection on the stainless-steel side of the industrial freezer. The image rubbed a raw nerve.

  How many times had she cowered around Walt, tiptoeing through their house in order not to wake him, or quietly keeping a discreet distance to avoid triggering one of his tantrums?

  She’d thought her days of treading lightly around hostile men were past, yet here she was skulking past Hardin’s office like a guilty child. Frustration and self-censure stabbed Annie.

  She’d come too far and paid too high of a price to be free of Walt to fall back into old habits now. Habits born from fear.

  Damn it, she didn’t want to live in fear anymore! Annie jammed her time card in the clock so hard it crumpled in the middle. Spinning on her heel to leave, she marched back by Hardin’s office, her chin up and her back straight.

  “Annie!”

  She froze, dread slowing her pulse and snagging her breath.

  Please, Lord, not another errand like last night.

  Heart thumping, she turned toward Hardin’s office and stepped to the door. “Yes?”

  “Where do you think you’re goin’?” he asked around a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. His eyes mirrored the same dark resentment she heard in his tone.

  “My shift is over. I was going home.”

  “Not if I say you don’t.”

  A rock lodged in Annie’s stomach. She dragged in a smoke-laced lungful of air, trying to steel her nerves and battle down the building panic.

  And anger—the most dangerous of emotions.

  Dealing with the repercussions of Walt’s rage had been enough to teach her just how dangerous. But her own temper had led her to say foolish things at times that had only inflamed Walt’s wrath. Fury over Walt’s unfairness and controlling nature had seethed in her gut like a corrosive waste until she would throw up, so she’d long ago learned to suppress her temper, swallow the bile and deny the heat of anger that flashed through her blood.

  Yet despite her best efforts to erase her ill-will and moments of irritation, she still carried a boatload of frustration and ire for the desperate circumstances of her life. She blamed Walt’s abuse and her submission to his violence for the dark cloud his threats still cast over her. Now Hardin was doing his best to intimidate and control her, and she struggled to keep the poisonous emotion at bay.

  “My shift is over, Mr. Hardin. I need to get home to my children.” Her voice quivered with anxiety and barely suppressed indignation. She curled her fingers into her palms, and the pulse of rising adrenaline throbbed in her temples.

  Her boss narrowed his eyes and stabbed out his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray on his desk. “Seems to me there’s a matter of two hundred thousand dollars you either have to pay back or work off.”

  The flutter of fear taunted her, beating hard against her breastbone.

  “Mr. H-Hardin, I could never work enough hours to repay—”

  “Well, if you ain’t going to work the extra hours, then maybe you could settle your debt with me…another way.” Surging to his feet, he raked a lascivious gaze over her and smirked.

  Annie fell back a step. Disgust slithered over her, and she shivered. Taking a slow breath, she searched for enough confidence to reply without her voice quaking. “No.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest, and his gaze continued to roam over her.

  “I’ll find a way to repay the money,” she said, though the words were sour knots in her throat that she had to force out. “It will take me a while—” Like forever. She cringed at the thought of tightening her budget even further and scraping together small payments for Hardin. “But I’ll find a way.”

  A muscle twitched in Hardin’s jaw, and his flinty eyes drilled into her. “I want the money by next week.”

  The ice in his tone, his stare sent a deep chill slicing through her. Trembling to her marrow, Annie whirled away and hurried toward the dining room. Her feet slipped and skidded on the greasy kitchen tile, but she didn’t slow down. She had to get away from Hardin. Get out of the diner. Get home to her children—the only place she felt even remotely safe anymore.

  “I can show you how to defend yourself, protect yourself.”

  As she rushed out of the diner, Jonah’s promise filtered through her head. Her steps slowed, and she reached into her pocket for the scrap of paper he’d given her with his gym’s address.

  If only—

  Forget if only. Dreams and wishes were for other people. She had to deal in reality. In truths and concrete facts.

  Her truth was she had to pay her hostile boss a hell of a lot of money.

  Picking up her pace again, she jogged to the bus stop, still quaking from Hardin’s chilling threat. No way could she find two hundred thousand dollars to repay him, even if she had a year to pay him. Much less a week.

  Her bus rumbled up to the stop just as she reached the street corner. While she waited for an older man with a walker to board, she fished in her pocket for her bus pass.

  Once more her fingers brushed the crumpled paper Jonah had given her.

  “Do it for your kids if not yourself.”

  Guilt and fear squeezed her chest, tangling with irritation over Jonah’s obvious manipulation of her love for her kids. She stared down at the address. What could it hurt just to go and see what Jonah wanted to teach her? He’d already proven he wanted to help, not harm her. And a gym was a public place. She’d be safe there. Right?

  “You coming or not?” the bus driver called, jarring her from her deliberations.

  “I—” Annie exhaled a deep breath of resignation. She had to at least try to protect herself from Hardin and men like the thief who jumped her last night. She was tired of living with this fear. She’d come too far to lose everything because she let a bully like Hardin intimidate her.

  Annie raised her chin and met the bus driver’s gaze. “Not.”

  With a puff of exhaust, the bus chugged away from the curb, and Annie headed toward Jonah’s gym.

  Chapter 4

  The scents of body odor and rubber floor mats greeted Annie as she entered Jonah’s gym minutes later. Wrinkling her nose as the unpleasant smells assailed her, she cast a wary glance around the cavernous warehouse.

  When Jonah had invited her to his gym, she’d pictured an upscale facility where beautiful bodies jogged on treadmills, followed a perky blond instructor in aerobic dance or toned their muscles on expensive weight machines. This gym was a far cry from her vision.

  Dingy and dark with nary a perky blonde in sight, the large room housed four boxing rings and numerous punching bags suspended from the bare rafters by steel chains. A litany of grunts and curses reverberated from the concrete block walls, while burly men in scruffy shorts and sleeveless shirts pounded the weighted bags—or each other.

  Apprehension slithered through Annie as she crept deeper into the room. Like a brewing storm, the raw power and the brute violence on display filled the room with an ominous and suffocating energy. Struggling to pull air into her lungs, Annie scanned the men’s faces for Jonah.

  With every passing minute, she grew more uncomfortable and self-conscious. One by one, sweat-drenched men paused from their training to eye her with curious, even lewd, glances. Her discomfort spiked as a man in the nearest boxing ring caught a bone-jarring blow to the chin that sent him to the mat w
ith a groan.

  “That’ll teach you to talk back to me!”

  She pressed her throbbing cheek to the cool floor, not daring to get up before Walt stalked from the room. Getting up only gave him the opportunity to knock her down again.

  The images before her blurred as tears pricked her eyes.

  She staggered backward, edging toward the door. She shouldn’t have come. Shouldn’t have risked—

  As she passed a different boxing ring where two men sparred while a third coached from the ropes, recognition slammed through her. She squinted at the face barely visible behind the protective headgear, and her heart tapped double time.

  Jonah.

  Stunned, she stared while Jonah exchanged jabs with the other man, shuffling his feet to dodge blows. Sweat glistened on his arms and glued his tank-style T-shirt to the flat plane of his abdomen. Well-defined muscles in his shoulders and chest spoke for the hours of training and conditioning Jonah had put in.

  Annie gawked at his brawny build, and heat prickled her skin. An unfamiliar flutter stirred in her chest, and realization that his size and strength had piqued her feminine interest startled her. Had she learned nothing in her marriage to Walt? She’d been physically attracted to Walt when they married. He’d been especially handsome in his military dress uniform the day they wed. But all the sexual chemistry in the world didn’t outweigh the suffering he’d put her through in later years.

  Yet she couldn’t help but stare at Jonah’s toned and powerful physique, his smooth style as he moved around the ring. With practiced skill, he ducked a swing and landed a solid hook to his opponent’s pad-protected jaw.

  Shocked out of her gawk-fest by his potent punch, Annie gasped.

  Jonah’s gaze darted to her.

  In that split second of his distraction, his opponent struck back with a blow to Jonah’s ribs.

  Annie felt the blow as surely as if she’d taken the hit herself. The air whooshed from her lungs, and tension screwed her muscles tight. Clapping a hand over her mouth, she fell back another step.

  “Devereaux, what the hell are you doing?” the silver-haired man by the ropes shouted. “You gotta keep your eyes in the ring!”

  Grinning through a grimace, Jonah raised his boxing gloves. “Time. I’ve got company.”

  She sidled toward Jonah as he climbed through the ropes and jumped down to meet her.

  “You came.” Equal measures of pleasure and surprise colored his tone.

  She nodded tightly and gave the activity in the room a meaningful glance. “If I’d known what kind of gym you meant, I don’t know that I would have.”

  His dark eyebrows drew together. “Why?”

  Eyeing the muscle-bound giant battering a small punching bag beside her, she inched closer to Jonah. “I’m…rather out of place, wouldn’t you say?”

  A warm grin lifted a corner of his mouth. “Hey, I know these guys look pretty rough, but I assure you, you’re perfectly safe here.”

  He rubbed his ribs and winced.

  “Are you all right?” She knew more than she cared to about the sting of fist-imposed injuries.

  He glanced down at his chest. “It’s nothing. Just a reminder that when you’re in the ring, you gotta stay focused on your opponent, not be distracted by what’s happening outside the ring.”

  The older man who’d been coaching winked at her. “Even if the distraction is mighty pretty.”

  Jonah tossed a towel at the other man. “Down, boy.”

  Annie frowned. “I’m sorry if I—”

  “No, no.” He waved off her apology. “My fault. I’m just glad you came.” To the silver-haired coach, he said, “Frank, I think I’m done for the day. Same time tomorrow?”

  Frank nodded. “Sure.” To the kid in the ring he called, “Okay, Billy. Hit the showers.”

  Jonah bit the lace on one glove and pulled it with his teeth, then moved on to the second.

  Annie fidgeted with her purse strap. “I can’t stay long. My kids—”

  “Pull?” He lifted his hands toward her.

  Annie blinked her surprise.

  “Please,” he added with a lopsided grin.

  Unaccustomed to refusing any man’s request, she awkwardly grasped one bulky glove and tugged. It didn’t budge.

  “Harder. You gotta really muscle ’em off.”

  Annie hesitated, jitters dancing in her gut. She slid her purse from her shoulder and set it on the concrete floor. Grabbing Jonah’s boxing glove with both hands, she pulled. Hard. As he freed each hand, Jonah shook his arms and flexed his fingers.

  “Thanks.” He took the gloves from her and tossed them next to a duffel bag on the floor at the edge of the ring. Hitching his head toward the locker room, he said, “Give me five minutes to grab a shower, and we’ll get started.”

  Annie sent another uncomfortable glance around the gym and bit her lip. “I should probably just get home. Maybe this was a mistake.”

  Furrowing his brow, he took her hand in his. His touch sent another flash of tingling heat over her skin.

  He ducked his head to meet her gaze and squeezed her fingers gently. “Don’t go. Just five minutes. I need to talk to you, but right now I smell like a goat.”

  His farm-animal comparison earned a half grin from her. And her concession. She nodded. “Five minutes.”

  With another handsome smile, he snatched up the gym bag and headed toward the locker room.

  “Jonah?”

  He turned.

  “Do you have a cell phone I can borrow? I need to call my babysitter and tell her I’ll be late.”

  “Sure.” He fished in his duffel and extracted a small flip phone. “Catch.” He tossed the phone toward her, and, caught off guard, she barely snagged the cell before it hit the concrete.

  While she waited for Jonah, Annie found a corner where she was out of the way and called her apartment. She filled Rani in on her delay, then talked to Haley, who bubbled with excitement over a new lost tooth.

  “I saved it to show you, Mommy. And Rani says if I put it under my pillow, the tooth fairy will give me money!”

  Annie smiled, loving the joy in her daughter’s voice and trying to recall if she had any change in her wallet to hide under Haley’s pillow.

  “Hey, Mommy, maybe you could put your teeth under your pillow and get some money from the tooth fairy, too!”

  Annie sputtered a laugh. “My teeth?”

  “Yeah, then maybe you wouldn’t have to go to work at the diner all the time and could stay home and play with me and Ben.”

  Remorse stabbed Annie, cutting her to the quick. “I don’t know, sugar. I think the tooth fairy only wants kids’ teeth.”

  “Oh.”

  The disappointment in her daughter’s tone wrenched Annie’s heart. “I’m supposed to have this Saturday off, though, and I promise we’ll do something fun. Just you, me and Ben. Maybe go to the park? Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  But Haley sounded skeptical. Too skeptical for a five-year-old. Knowing how many times she’d had to cancel plans with Haley when she had to work extra hours at the diner flooded Annie with fresh guilt.

  Jonah emerged from the locker room, wearing a clean T-shirt and jeans, his wet hair combed back from his face. His gaze swept the room looking for her, and when he spotted her, a smile softened the hard planes of his face.

  Annie’s pulse missed a beat.

  Jonah wasn’t handsome in the classical sense. So why was he suddenly stirring this schoolgirl reaction in her?

  She chastized herself. She was too busy making ends meet, fighting for her survival and reeling from her last devastating relationship to be in the market for a man. She had no business looking at Jonah as anything other than a regular customer at the diner. A mysterious man who’d rescued her from her attacker. The person who’d offered to show her techniques to protect herself and her family from further abuse.

  “Haley, sugar, I have to go now. Be sweet for Rani and eat all of your dinner. Okay
?” Annie watched Jonah cross the gym floor, his loose-limbed stride confident and relaxed. Her breath hung in her lungs.

  Haley grumbled an unintelligible response as Jonah reached her.

  “I’ll be home soon, sugar. B’bye.” She closed the phone and held it out to Jonah. “Thanks.”

  Taking the cell from her, he jerked his chin toward a nearby door. “Let’s use the manager’s office. It’s quieter. More private.”

  More isolated. Her stomach flip-flopped as she fell in step behind Jonah.

  “Hey, Frank,” he called to the coach who was working with a boxer on a small punching bag. “Mind if we use your office for a while?”

  The man eyed Annie, then sent Jonah a conspiratorial grin. “Be my guest.”

  After leading her into the windowless office with a sign that read “Owner,” Jonah closed the door behind him, muting the cacophony from the gym floor and spiking Annie’s level of discomfort.

  She was suddenly hyperaware that she was alone with a man she barely knew. The idea of being alone with Jonah both tantalized and frightened her. Drawing her purse against her chest, she glanced about the dim office. The decor was surprisingly upscale, with oil paintings and a leather couch. The large desk was covered with old photographs of a younger Frank posing with a pretty woman and a blond little girl.

  “Why do I make you so nervous?” Jonah’s question drew her gaze back to him. He angled his head and studied her with a lazy sweep of his eyes.

  She forced a smile. “You don’t.”

  Sitting on the edge of the wooden desk, Jonah waved a finger toward her purse. “Your body language says otherwise.”

  Annie glanced down at her white-knuckle grip on her purse and the defensive position of her arms crossed over her chest. Knowing he could read her so easily didn’t help ease her tension.

  She sighed. “I’m just…out of my element here. I don’t know you well, and this whole business with Hardin and the money I lost has—”

  “Stop.” He said the word softly, but with enough cool command to freeze the words on her tongue.